The International Trade Order

The importance of trade for international law and development discussions is hardly surprising; international trade is consistently represented as an effective strategy for development. However, assuming that trade and law can contribute to the Global South’s development requires accepting that they can — and may well have — contribute to the opposite: underdevelopment. This chapter argues that the most important laws for the capitalist industrialization of Western countries were not those of private property, contracts, or free trade but those related to colonial long-distance trade. A central claim is that the international trade regime that emerged from Western industrialization misses a vocabulary to modify or change the international division of labour. In other words, countries may or may not succeed in developing economically, but international trade law does little to help them — when it is not an obstacle